ARMM gov't sends team to Tawi-Tawi to check displaced Sabah villagers

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The executive department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao dispatched Monday a team of health and social welfare officials to Tawi-Tawi to check on the reported exodus to the province of Tausog and Samah villagers from Sabah to escape from the continuing crackdown by Malaysian authorities.  

ARMM officials told reporters the mission is humanitarian in nature, focused on providing relief and medical services to Filipinos that may have been dislocated by the ensuing strife in Sabah.

The team is led by Hadja Pombaen Karon Kader, assistant social welfare secretary of ARMM and representatives of the office of regional health chief Kadil Sinolinding, Jr.

The ARMM’s communications group said local officials in the towns of Tawi-Tawi have also been requested to help monitor the plight of Filipinos in Sabah and recommend measures on how the government can extend relief assistance to them.

Local officials in the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, among them members of the Moro royalties in the two provinces, said they are hoping the Philippine and Malaysian governments can agree to imposing a ceasefire in the conflict-stricken areas in Sabah to enable both sides to find possible peaceful remedies to the conflict.

Local executives in Tawi-Tawi island municipalities near Sabah said their relatives and friends in other Malaysian territories not affected by the Sabah conflict have confirmed that the Malaysian government has been enforcing a total blackout on the events in the mineral-rich province.

“There is a raging guerilla-type war there between the followers of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III and Malaysian forces. It is not true that the Malaysian government has driven away the sultan’s armed followers that occupied Lahad Datu (in Sabah), a local official, who asked not to be identified, said.